Nipple Ring-Ring Goes to Foster Care
"Nipple Ring-Ring Goes to Foster Care" is the thirty-fourth episode of Drawn Together. Storyline The housemates have a huge birthday party for Ling-Ling's 21st birthday, topped off by the traditional 21 shots of alcohol followed by 21 doses of "Sweet Georgia Brown". Unsurprisingly, Ling-Ling overdoses. Wooldoor is able to save his life, but when he pulls out Ling-Ling's wallet to check his health insurance, the housemates learn that the little battle monster is actually only 3 years old. Despite Ling-Ling's insistence that he is 21 years old in battle monster years, Child Services promptly arrives to take Ling-Ling away. Although Ling-Ling states that he loves his housemates and begs to be allowed to stay with them, he ends up being place in foster care, where he ends up in the house of an elderly black man, who proceeds to treat Ling-Ling more as a servant than a child. While cleaning the man's shack one day, Ling-Ling discovers that his foster father is actually Uncle Benny, the most famous rice-related black stereotype ever. Ling-Ling and Benny end up bonding upon discovering their mutual love of rice. Back at the house, the housemates are heartbroken now that Ling-Ling is gone. Foxxy decides to save him by infiltrating the foster care system posing as a foster child herself. After being shuffled through several foster homes, Foxxy finally ends up at Benny's shack. However, Ling-Ling is not the only resident of the house who recognizes Foxxy- as it turns out, Benny is Foxxy's biological father. After some initial tension, Foxxy and Benny mend their differences, and decide to renew their relationship by spending some quality time together, which leaves Ling-Ling feeling left out. After Foxxy and Benny go visit the rice museum/Holocaust memorial, they come home with their "entire family's" likeness carved into a grain of rice; when Ling-Ling sees that the image doesn't include himself, he becomes angry. He and Foxxy begin to argue vigorously. While this is going on, Benny decides to take off, and deserts his family once again. Meanwhile, Hero is jealous of Xandir's nipple ring and decides to get one himself. After he gets hit by lighting, Hero realizes he can use his nipple ring to communicate with his past self. Hero gets young Leslie into all sorts of trouble by telling him to commit ridiculous acts such as having sex with a sandwich in front of the girl he is in love with, Letta Lame. He then tells Leslie to burn down the barn at which the big dance is taking place, but instead of saving Letta, he tells Leslie to have sex with the sandwich again. Leslie does, and as a result of his inaction, Letta ends up perishing in the fire. The townspeople form a mob and go to Leslie's house to harass him. When a distraught Leslie threatens to commit suicide, Hero laughs- until Xandir informs him that if Leslie kills himself, Hero will disappear. Hero manages to stop Leslie from killing himself, and admits to Xandir that the reason he was messing with his younger self was because some jerk did the same thing to him when he was twelve. Still not getting the message, however, Hero continues to prank his past self by telling him to take a photo of himself having sex with a sandwich and leaving it under a tree for the older Hero to find. Leslie does this, but when Hero goes to collect the photo, he is promptly arrested by the police, who inform him that he has been captured as part of a sting operation that the young Leslie set up 20 years ago. Hero begs to be allowed to keep the picture, as it is the only image he has of his penis before "the accident took place". When he is denied this request, he angrily tells Leslie to "go fuck a garbage disposal"- which Leslie does. And the cycle continues. Notes and inside references * The Child Services woman makes her second appearance in the series; she first appeared in "Captain Girl". Tara Strong takes over as the character's voice actor; previously, she was voiced by Paget Brewster. * Despite the fact that she holds up a copy of the Drawn Together Season One DVD, none of the clips the Child Services woman plays are from actual episodes. * When he sees Foxxy, Uncle Benny asks, "Is that you for real real, not for play play?". This is a reference to Foxxy's line in "Gay Bash", "Go Foxxy, it's your birthday, not for real real, just for play play". * Toot does not have any dialogue in this episode. * This is the second Drawn Together episode not to contain a musical number. The first was "Lost in Parking Space, Part One". Animated cameos * Odie from Garfield appears during a sequence where the Child Services woman discusses how Ling-Ling has been denied lasagna; in the clip, Ling-Ling is animated to resemble Garfield while Xandir is animated to resemble Jon Arbuckle. * While trying to find Ling-Ling, Foxxy makes her way through a variety of foster homes, including the home of Daddy Warbucks (from Little Orphan Annie). Annie warns Foxxy that Daddy Warbucks will take out her eyes, a reference to how the characters in that comic strip are depicted without pupils. * Foxxy also visits the home of Megatron from The Transformers (voiced by Jess Harnell). * The third foster home Foxxy is sent to is a blank slate, where she is then tormented by an unseen animator, a reference to the Daffy Duck cartoon Duck Amuck. At the end of the sequence, the camera then pulls out to reveal Bugs Bunny. Bugs says, "Ain't I an asshole?", a reference to Bugs's catchphrase in Looney Tunes, "Ain't I a stinker?". Cultural references * Captain Hero is revealed to come from a place called Smalltown, a reference to Smallville, the hometown of Superman. The girl he has a crush on, Letta Lame, is based on Superman's high school girlfriend Lana Lang. * The scene where Wooldoor stands over Ling-Ling and plunges a hypodermic syringe directly into his heart is based on a similar scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent Vega does the same thing to Mia Wallace. Ling-Ling's wallet is labelled "Bad Motherfucker", the same thing Jules Winnfield's wallet said in the same film. * Ling-Ling states that his three-year age is equivalent to 21 battle monster years. This refers to the inaccurate but widely believed adage that every year of a dog's life is equivalent to seven human years.http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/dogyears.asp * The "Hero Computer" is actually a See 'n Say, a toy created by Mattel. * Foxxy states that in the group's malaise, they let their Tibetans have too much freedom. This is a reference to the Free Tibet movement. * The Captain Hero subplot of two persons communicating with each other across time via radio is a spoof of the movie Frequency. * One of the "lies" Hero tells his younger self is that Sonny Bono is an Olympic skier, a reference to Bono's death in a skiing accident. * Among the posters in the younger Hero's room are images of the video game Pac-Man, the film Star Trek III, a Patrick Nagel poster, and the legendary swimsuit photo of Farrah Fawcett.http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Farrah_Fawcett_-_Swimsuit_Poster * Leslie's computer is a compact Macintosh. * The walkie-talkie that the younger Hero uses to communicate with his older self is shaped like Alf. * The giant sandworm that devours Toot is a reference to Dune, a series of novels by Frank Herbert. * The character of Uncle Benny is based on real-life rice manufacturer Uncle Ben. * During the diner scene, a person can be seen who resembles Boy George. Another patron in the diner wears an Energy Dome hat similar to those worn by the band Devo. * Leslie's matchbook says "Hard Rock Smalltown", a reference to the Hard Rock Cafe. * Ling-Ling implores Uncle Benny to leave the window open "so sweet chariot can swing low and come to carry you home", quoting lines from the song "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", a famous Negro spiritual. * When the townspeople form a mob to attack the younger Hero, one of them throws a Rubik's cube through the window. A Cabbage Patch Kids doll and a Vans shoe follow. * At different times, Leslie says "Ice Ice Baby", "Walk Like an Egyptian", and "Do the Bartman", each referring to a popular song from times past. Of the three, however, only "Walk Like an Egyptian" existed in 1986, the year in which that portion of the episode takes place. "Ice Ice Baby" and "Do the Bartman" would not be released until 1990. * When his younger self threatens to commit suicide, the present Captain Hero begins to disappear. This is a reference to the grandfather paradox of time travel, made famous by its use in the Back to the Future trilogy. Category:Episodes